Religious trauma certainly makes leaving an unhealthy environment difficult, and it absolutely makes assessing new environments for health difficult, too. Enter: Robert Jay Lifton’s Eight Criteria for Thought Reform from his 1961 book on high-control cult environments. Despite being an old book, these eight criteria remain a robust framework for understanding how cults and other high-control environments maintain control of their group members, effectively brainwashing them to protect the system in power. Examining each criterion gives us an opportunity to imagine and consider what a healthy church environment might look like.